Fire Emblem Fates Review - Story, Three Paths, and "Choice"

SPOILER WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE STORIES OF FIRE EMBLEM FATES AND FIRE EMBLEM AWAKENING FOLLOW

This is the second in a three part series on my review of Fire Emblem Fates.

When it comes to Fire Emblem Awakening, what really made it special, at least to me, and what I was most curious about with Fates, was its narrative. The story of Awakening was exciting and engaging, there were many great sequences in the story that stuck with me. The characters were interesting, likable, and memorable, and the ending was very impactful and has stuck with me as one of my favorite video game endings. The gameplay of course which I adore from Fire Emblem also helped, as did the incredible soundtrack (Fates’ soundtrack is also quite good), but at its core, the narrative is what made Awakening so special to me. So, with that in mind, how did Fates do?

Initially, I was not sure how I would feel about Fates’ narrative. When the game released and impressions came out, I noticed a lot of negativity surrounding the game’s narrative. I was worried, but also a little skeptical. I knew from researching the game that Intelligent System (the developers) hired a professional writer for the game’s story, and they talked a lot about it as a special quality of the game.

Having played the game however, I can say that I agree with the majority of fans in saying that Fates’ narrative is its biggest let down. There are a couple of core problems I had. First, the set up. One thing I liked about the story of Awakening and Fire Emblem games in general, is that their stories have a few points in which there will be a time skip and large change in the narrative. The main enemy of the current quest will be defeated, and characters will go their separate ways and enter an era of relative peace. I love these time skips, because it allows the story to then become unpredictable to the player, since you have no idea where things will go next. It allows there to be multiple main enemies, and it also means you can have characters develop and change after the time skip, to create a lot of interesting scenarios for them. Characters can move up in status from when you last saw them, switch factions, have new occupations, experience a tragic loss, etc. and you can then see the ramifications of their change and its effects on you and the story. It also means you can then split the story into arcs between time skips with multiple villains, and then look for parallels, contrasts, etc. In general it makes the story a lot more interesting and I’ve always seen them as a core part of Fire Emblem stories.

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Awakening's villains

Which is why it’s all the more disappointing that Fates has none of this. During the first 5 chapters of the game, before the big choice, King Garon is established as the main villain, and he remains as such for the entire campaign in both the Birthright and Conquest paths. It’s even worse in the Revelations path, in which, immediately after making the choice to go down that path, the game reveals King Garon’s master, Anankos as the true villain of the game. He then remains the main objective for the story the entire way through, removing any sort of mystery the game could have had by not revealing him so early on. All in all, this means there are little to no major plot twists in the stories of all 3 paths, and no time skips or significant changes for the characters, making the stories of all 3 paths feel less interesting than Awakening’s story.

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Fates' Villains

I can only guess that the reason for this comes from the massive scale of the game. Fire Emblem Fates is essentially 3 games in 1. It’s 3 times larger than Awakening, with roughly double the amount of characters. It would not surprise me if the size of the game is what accounts for all the stories feeling lacking in comparison to Awakening’s. With so many stories to make, less effort was put into them then if there were only one.

This brings me to Fates’ main selling point, the choice of 3 paths. Fire Emblem Fates is 3 games in 1, but you can only choose 1 path to go down when you first play it. Your chosen path will be the one you think would suit you best, and then if you choose, you can return to the choice in the story and go down other paths (for more money of course). This is the big question I want to ask in this review, was the choice to make the game so huge and centered around this large choice worth it?

I’ve already gone over how the 3 stories suffer from how dense the game is, but I also find the emphasis on choice lacking as a thematic theme. Given that the choice at the start of the game is so important for the rest of the game, I thought the game might have a large theme of choice to it, in which the player is given other significant choices later on in each path that might affect how characters grow, or how parts of the story play out in the end. To my disappointment, this isn’t the case. While each of the paths do make it clear that the choice you make at the start of the game is important, and how that choice laid the foundation for the entire future path you go down, there are no other significant choices after that. For a game that’s supposed to be about choice, the player is given very little of it.

This is made even more disappointing when you compare Fates to its older sibling. A large part of what made Awakening’s story so memorable to me was the choice available to the player, especially at the ending. Awakening’s story has certain scenes in which characters will change in a way that the player can affect. Chrom after one time skip will marry whichever character he has the highest support with. In one scene Lucina will have a dramatic moment with the player, which will have different dialogue depending on the player’s relationship with her. And finally, the ending. Awakening’s ending offers the player an important choice that will lead to 1 of 2 endings. Not only will the player’s choice here affect the entire ending of the game, but whomever the player marries will see a very different ending then the other characters based on the player’s choice. It really feels like the player has agency in these moments, and not only does it make the game fun to discuss with others (comparing what you chose), it also makes the story feel special. Fates has none of these scenes and choices, there are no choices that have large impacts on a character, the endings do not even have any special scenes between the main character and whomever you married. Unlike Awakening, I did not bother looking up what choice players made in Fates, because there simply were none.

Awakening’s ending also sheds light on another problem with Fates’ choice. See, while Awakening has 2 endings, of which the player must choose 1, neither is the “true” ending. Both are good in their own way, and in doing so, it means the player will think critically about which choice to make, since there is no best option, and again will make the choice feel significant. You would think, in a game that makes a big deal about its initial choice to 3 paths, Fates’ story would establish that all 3 are good paths in their own way.

Yet… this is not the case. At the beginning of the Revelations path, the game spells out to you in no uncertain terms that King Garon (the villain of the first two paths) is merely a puppet of Anankos, and only by defeating him can you truly save the world. This completely invalidates the story of Birthright and Conquest, making Revelations the clear true path. This was really disheartening to me, because now in hindsight I can’t help but view the stories of Birthright and Conquest as less conclusive, since you merely defeat the puppet of the main villain. However, the real threat is still out there and will likely return soon. It makes the choice, the all important choice at the beginning of the game, feel meaningless, since it is a matter of picking the right choice, or the wrong one.

Making Revelations the true path also feels troublesome from a gameplay perspective. It would mean that the ideal and perhaps intended way of playing Fates is to play all 3 paths, since this would lead to the true ending. This means that players who decide to only buy and play 1 path will get a lesser ending. At the same time, playing through all 3 paths is a tedious task. As I said earlier, I was only able to do so by taking a break between each of the 3 paths. Hiding the true ending behind such a difficult requirement means that most players will not experience the true ending. This could have been avoided if one of two changes were made:

1) The endings were changed. I am still ok with Revelations being the true ending, but I would not have it invalidate the endings of Birthright and Conquest. Say, tell the player at one point that defeating King Garon instead of Anankos would sever its connection to the world, saving the world, but that the main villain might return thousands of years later. This would ensure the endings of Birthright and Conquest are still important and good endings in their own way, while at the same time still having Revelations’ ending be the true one. Or:

2) Have significant gameplay changes between the 3 paths, such that playing through all 3 of them back to back is an enjoyable experience for the player, rather than a tedious one.

This is a major problem I have with the 3 path structure. The story of the 3 paths encourages you to play through all 3, but the gameplay itself does not. Because the gameplay of the 3 games is so similar, once you’ve played one path, you’re not really going to get anything new gameplay wise from the other paths, discouraging you from playing through them. It is a contradiction that in my mind really cripples the 3 path structure, and again, makes the decision to make the game 3 paths feel like the wrong move.

That’s it for this part, but I still have one part of the narrative left to unpack, arguably the most important: the characters. Find part 3 for the conclusion.

Link for part 3: http://johnnyappleshy.blogspot.com/2019/03/fire-emblem-fates-review-characters.html